Selective Memory
by xxVisionGirlxx
Summary: The episode Blank takes a very different turn. CoWritten w Sunrei. Clois.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Selective Memory  
Authors: Sunrei (Sonia) & VisionGirl (Marcy)  
Summary: The episode _Blank_ takes a very different turn.  
IMPORTANT: This is slightly AU in that Chloe knows about Clark's origins. Just imagine that she had confronted him after Alicia.

Notes:

Marcy: Collaboration means different things to different people. For us it meant seeing how many ridiculous plot points we could get away with stringing together. The result? Well, a story we hope is somewhat humorous. Thanks to Sonia - I look forward to working with you on the sequel (Oh, right, and finishing this)

Sonia: I would like to say that this experience has been one hell of a ride. Marcy and I have laughed, cried, and fallen out of our chairs at times in the process of bringing this thing together. Both of us are self-proclaimed rebels and lone rangers, but the idea of working with Marcy was intriguing. Never having had a partner-in-crime before, I am thus spoiled. Final thought- if you don't laugh at our ability to be as ridiculous as possible… something is wrong with you. Enjoy

CHAPTER 1  
---

"Do you recognize anything? I mean the house, or the cows? The tractor… anything?"

Clark looked around blankly. It all looked nice; a place that was obviously well taken care of by the people who lived there, but none of it registered with him.

"Are you sure this is where I live?"

"Yeah… um, you spend most of your time over there," his tour guide replied, pointing to a building behind them and to her right.

Clark turned to see what she was pointing to. "In a barn?"

"Well, normal was never really your style, Clark."

That name again. He knew it was his, but it still felt odd… as if there was another name that he answered to.

"That was my attempt at humor. Sometimes I crash and burn. Sorry."

He knew that she… Chloe was her name… was feeling as nervous and awkward as he was. It was obvious that she was a friend of his. He briefly wondered if there was more to it but felt that it was probably too much to think about right now. Turning again to face the yellow farmhouse, Clark decided that it was time to open some of the doors to his hidden past.

He raised a hand to knock once they had climbed the steps of the porch.

"Clark, it's your house," Chloe told him. She couldn't help but be amused by the situation. Here Clark was, not remembering anything about himself, yet he was still Mr. Manners. It gave credit to the theory that personalities were ingrained in your genes.

That thought was somewhat refreshing. Maybe she would finally get a glimpse at the Clark Kent he kept to himself.

"Right," he answered grimly.

His expression sobered Chloe's mirth. She had to remember that he was feeling totally out of place here. When the front door flew past her head, she remembered that he _really_ was out of place.

"I… it was… It was stuck," he stammered.

"Actually, I think it was locked." Chloe stepped past him and entered the house. This was quite a turn of the tables. She was going to have to explain his strangeness to _him_.

Clark stared at a picture on the refrigerator as Chloe moved deeper into the house calling for the people who were supposed to live there… his parents, she'd said. They looked like nice people. They were all smiling at least.

"What the hell happened to the door?"

He spun around and for the first time in as long as he could remember, which wasn't long, he smiled. "Lois," he mumbled under his breath.

He didn't know much of anything at that moment, but he recognized her. The girl standing in the doorway with the sandy brown hair was Lois… He frowned. There was a last name in there somewhere.

"The door?" she reiterated with slightly raised brows.

He blinked and realized that he had been staring. "You know, I tried to open it and then…"

"…and some freak wind came and blew it right off!" Chloe exclaimed, returning to the room just in time to cut off his explanation.

Clark looked at her oddly, wondering why she wasn't telling the truth. She had told him that the door was locked, and hadn't seemed alarmed by his ability to pull it off at the hinges. Something didn't add up.

"Right," Lois retorted, stepping through the open doorway.

Clark could tell that she didn't believe the explanation but she didn't question it any further. He figured that the relationship between the two girls must be pretty close for Lois to take Chloe's explanation at face value.

"Lois, do you know where the Kents are?" Chloe asked, moving the topic safely away from the door.

"They're in Metropolis for Mr. Kent's heart exam." Lois now turned a speculative look toward Clark. "Clark, you know that."

"Well, not really," Chloe started. It seemed to Clark that she was always explaining things. "See, Clark has amnesia and he's having trouble…"

"Again?" Lois asked, stepping closer with squinted eyes as she studied him. Her expression turned doubtful again. "I'm waiting for the punch line."

_Again?_ Clark frowned. _What did that mean?_

"No punch line, Lois," Chloe said. "He can't remember anything."

"But I remember _her_," Clark inserted.

They both turned to him in astonishment. "You do?" "You do?"

"She lives here with me."

Chloe's head tilted. He said that with an extreme amount of confidence for a guy who hadn't even thought that _he_ lived there a few minutes earlier. "How do you know that?"

Clark hesitated. "I don't know."

Lois looked from one to the other as if they both had lost their minds. "What's going on?" She'd had a long day and an amnesiac Clark was not helping. "What happened?"

"I found him in the alley behind the Talon right after your robbery-in-plain-sight incident. I think Clark's blank slate could be related."

Lois took a step back with a smirk. "So, what? We have a thief with memory repo?"

Chloe shrugged. Anything was possible in Smallville.

"I guess that could explain why I zoned out eight coffee orders before discovering that the till was empty."

"Yeah, well, I'm going to go back to the Talon and see what I can turn up. Somebody must have seen something."

"Pardon me if I don't join the Dr. Who quest just yet," Lois said. "I should probably start packing."

"Packing?" Clark asked alarmed. "Are you leaving?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "My cousin is overly dramatic at times."

_Ah, cousins._ That explained that part of it.

"Yeah, well, try being left in charge of a fully functional coffee shop and manage to squander away the entire day's take. I call that justifiable panic."

Chloe gave her cousin a sympathetic look. "Come on, Clark."

"Actually, I'm going to stay with Lois," he announced. He could tell that she was really shaken by what had happened that day even though she was covering with humor and wanted to reassure her. "I'm sure my parents wouldn't kick my wife out of the house over something like that."

Both cousins' eyes grew wide and he saw finally the family resemblance. He replayed his comment in his head to see where he'd misspoken.

"Your wh…"

Chloe grabbed Lois's arm and started to pull toward the doorway. "Lois! Can I talk to you for a minute?" She flashed Clark a look. "Privately?"

As Chloe continued to drag her speechless cousin away from Clark, she blindly reached for the doorknob before realizing that it was no longer there. She flashed Clark a smile and pulled Lois outside and down the steps.

"Did you hear what he said?" Lois asked, snapping out of her stupor as they stepped to the ground.

"Yeah." Chloe placed her hands on Lois's arms. "He thinks you're his wife, which is a totally wrong yet highly amusing idea… But you can't correct him."

"Excuse me?"

"Before I brought him home, we stopped by the Torch so I could do a little research on memory loss. I got hold of a specialist in Metropolis and he was really concerned with how Clark lost his memory because there was no head trauma involved."

"No head trauma," Lois repeated dryly. "I can fix that." She spun on her heel and turned to go back to the house.

Chloe grabbed her arm again. "Wait! The doctor said that his memory might start returning slowly and that it was best not to confuse him."

Lois gave her an incredulous look. "He can't possibly get more confused than this."

"Actually, he can. Without a knock to the head, the onslaught of amnesia means that some wires are crossed somewhere…"

"Obviously."

Chloe ignored the interruption and continued, "And if you cross wires too much they might fry. The doctor suggested to slowly introduce Clark back into his life but to be careful not to refute any memories that he turns up on his own."

"Those are not memories, Chloe! Those aren't even fantasies!" _God, I hope they aren't fantasies._

"I know, I know, but to _him_ they are. Until we know how your coffee bandit was able to pull a mind swipe, I think we have to play it safe. We don't really don't know what we're dealing with here. You got zapped too, what if your reaction is just delayed? For all we know, messing with Clark's synapses right now could be detrimental."

Lois shrugged. "It could make him snap out of it," she offered half-heartedly.

Chloe's expressive eyes turned anxious. "Or it could make his current mental state permanent." Her brows inched nearer to her hairline. "You could spend the rest of your life as Lois Lane _Kent_."

Lois narrowed her eyes. "How long do you need?"

Chloe grinned. She could feel Lois's resolve crumbling. "A couple of hours - give or take."

Lois sighed heavily.

"Come on Lois, he may not remember who he is, but he's still Clark. What's the worse that could happen?"

Lois arched an eyebrow. "I hope we don't find out the answer to that." She gave her cousin a light shove. "Now, go. The quicker you solve this thing, the sooner he's back to being himself."

Chloe smiled in gratitude. "Thank you! I'll keep you posted." She paused as she walked to her car. "Don't forget, let _him_ tell you what he remembers… not the other way around, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Lois acknowledged, waving her cousin off. "I got it. We'll be fine."

Lois watched as Chloe jumped into her VW bug and backed down the drive. Straightening her shoulders, she turned and started walking toward the house. She'd dealt with Amnesia Boy before and lived.

_Piece of cake._

Clark rose from his seat when Lois returned through the gap in the wall where the door used to be. He met her halfway as she crossed the kitchen to him.

"I'm sorry. I made a mistake."

Lois visibly relaxed. This was going to be over sooner than she thought. "So you know you were wrong?" she questioned vaguely, keeping with her part to of the bargain by not offering new information.

He smiled and reached for her hand, holding it up so they both could see the empty spot where a ring would be. "I know we're not married," he replied sheepishly. He met her eyes and smiled softly. "At least, not yet."


	2. Chapter 2

_Crap._

Lois quickly shuffled across the loft, balancing a stack of frames in her arms. If she were to venture a look down, twenty-odd glossy Lana Langs would be staring back at her.

"Lois?" Clark called from the barn's entrance.

_Crap. Crap. Crap._

Lois picked up the pace, snatching the last few photos from Clark's makeshift shrine. She scanned the room for a place to stash them, keenly aware of the work boots now clomping up the stairs. 

Snap-decision time, Lois settled on the trunk by the bay window. She toed open the lid, flung the frames inside and whirled around just in time to see --

"Clark, hey." She reached behind her and knocked the lid shut, hiding her guilt behind a tight smile.

It had been an hour since Chloe had left her alone with Mr. Nobody and she had been running herself ragged trying to hide the evidence of Clark's life that didn't mesh with her newfound status as his fiancée. She'd taken personal belongings that had once been confined to her room and redistributed them throughout the house. The living room couch had been successfully stripped of its bed linens. And while he was getting reacquainted with Shelby, she'd even thrown a bunch of his ugly flannel shirts in with her laundry.

Luckily she didn't have to worry about the answering machine message. She'd personalized that thing weeks ago.

All in all, Lois felt like she had a pretty good handle on the situation. That was, until Clark entered the equation. It seemed that sans-memory, and whatever burdens that went along with it, Clark Kent oozed confidence. And so did his hands. To her credit she'd endured all the PDAs with a poker face Amarillo Slim would be proud of, slipping out of his advances with one quick excuse after another.

But when he had snuck up behind her in the kitchen, wrapping his arms around her torso and placing a light kiss on her neck – well, that had been her breaking point.

She had ditched him by the hall stairs and ducked into the linen closet to make a frantic call to Chloe.

_"Pickup, pick up, pick up…"_

"Hello?"

"I can't do this anymore."

"Lois?"

"I tried. I failed. I've accepted my shortcomings. Now can I please tell Clark the truth?"

"What happened? I left you two alone for an hour –"

"He nuzzled me, Chlo! I'm a team player but I draw the line at groping."

"Lois, please. It won't be much longer. I found a day pass for the Grand View Motor Cross Park. I'm tracing it now."

"Chlo-e."

"It'll be quick. I promise."

Quick her ass. She hadn't heard from her cousin since.

Lois shuddered off the memory as Clark moved closer, handing her a blue and white striped photo album. "I found this in my parents' room. I thought it might help."

Lois nodded. It was a step in the right direction. "Great. The sooner we get those elusive memories back, the better."

His hand brushed her arm. "Thanks, Lois. For helping with this," he said sincerely. His lips quirked up in that dopey love-sick smile she was beginning to find extremely unsettling.

Lois awkwardly cleared her throat. "Um, sure." She spun on her heels and made her way to the couch. "Let's get started. We're burnin' daylight here, Smallville."

Lois took a seat, only to find him exactly where she had left him. She pointed at him.

"You. Smallville," she clarified.

He considered it for a moment and then slyly asked, "Is that a pet name?"

She blinked.

A _what_?

"I like it," he said as he sat down beside her, a little closer than she would have preferred. As if it was second nature - and apparently it _was_ - his hand found its way to her thigh. Lois immediately stiffened.

"Oh look, here you are riding a tractor!" she squeaked, shoving the open album in his face. "This must really open the floodgates huh? I bet it's all coming back to you. Well, my job here is done –"

She vaulted herself off the couch only to have him catch her arm. He shook his head apologetically.

She sighed and plopped back down, cracking the album once again and inhaling deeply. Something told her that the re-education of Clark Kent was going to be as tedious as it was awkward.

"Okay, Sm—Clark. Let's refresh that memory of yours."

The picture on the first page was black and white; an old couple stood smiling in front of a farm house, two German Shepards at their heels. Clark looked at her expectantly.

"This is…um…an old guy in a straw hat," Lois narrated lamely. "And his wife, Mrs. Old Guy In a Straw Hat." She sighed and gave him a contrite shrug. "Sorry, I don't really know many people in your family."

"It's okay. Neither do I," he assured her with a wink.

Lois eyed him wearily. She had never seen him quite this self-assured before. It was like he was finally comfortable in his own skin. Or flannel.

She was beginning to wonder if Clark had lost his memories or underwent a lobotomy.

"Do you know her?"

The album had been turned to the next page. The old couple was gone and in their place Lana Lang stood as the apex of human pyramid, pom poms raised victoriously.

How had she made it into the _family_ album? Damn, that girl was everywhere.

"That's Lana," Lois explained carefully. "She used to live next door."

"Oh." Clark shrugged and flipped the page.

She continued to watch him, waiting for the fallout. Wasn't this the part when Clark Kent's mind was whipped into a frappe and began to leak out of his ears? "Well?"

"Well…what?"

She flipped the page back. "Are you telling me you don't recognize her?" 

Clark studied the picture for a minute. "Actually, now that you mention it, I think I do."

Lois felt her whole body relax. Now they were getting somewhere.

"I think there's a picture of her downstairs."

Lois rolled her eyes. _Of course there is._ "That's it? You saw a picture of her downstairs? That's the entire extent of your recollection of this girl right here?"

"Yup." Clark turned to her and frowned. "Why? Is she important?"

"I...I guess not."

As Clark continued to flip through the album, Lois leaned back against the couch cushions. None of this made sense. Clark didn't recognize the girl he had been lusting after for who knows how long, but he remembered her? And in a romantic context? She was no psych major – hell, she wasn't a major _period_ – but wouldn't that mean that…

God, she needed an aspirin.

"Hey, Lo?"

She looked up, the affectionate shortening of her name registering only on the fringes of her mind.

"Where are all the pictures of us?"


	3. Chapter 3

Lois ran her hands over her hair, squeezing the excess water onto her back. Releasing a tired sigh, she turned and leaned into the spray of water streaming from the showerhead, dousing her face and hair once again.

She felt cool air on her back and froze. The shower curtain had been shifted. She spun around so fast that she slipped and started to lose balance but Clark reached out and stabilized her. Awkwardly pushing past while holding his arm to stay upright, she reached out of the curtain and grabbed the first thing she could reach to cover herself up with.

She grimaced when she realized that she had wrapped Clark's flannel shirt around herself, and as it was getting drenched in the continuing downpour, it wasn't providing her as much cover as she would have liked.

"What are you doing?"

Clark seemed to be amused by her antics. She was looking everywhere - up, right, and left - but down. "I thought I'd help you scrub your back."

Lois looked to where his hands were still bracing her arms with disdain. She didn't know how the hell he could have snuck up on her like that. Seeing his grin reappear, she decided that she'd had too much and stepped out of the tub, splashing water everywhere.

Clark reached behind him and turned off the water. As he followed her out of the shower, a towel hit him in the face. He laughed and wrapped it around his waist. They both stood facing each other dripping.

"We don't take showers?"

"Oh, we take showers," Lois sputtered. "_Separate_ showers!"

"You still have soap on you…" he informed her, reaching out to show her where she'd missed.

"It's okay," she replied, taking a small step back. She couldn't turn around because the shirt she was clutching only covered her front. "It's just soap."

Clark was perplexed with her reaction. He was pretty sure that they did more than take showers. The closet in his bedroom was divided into space for both of their clothes for one thing, and there was an eye-mask on the table next to one side of the bed. He was pretty sure that the blue mask decorated with lace and glitter wasn't his.

"You don't have anything to be ashamed of," he told her. "You're beautiful." His eyes took on a mischievous glint. "I especially like the butterfly."

Lois silently screamed. She had forgotten that there was mirror behind her. "Clark… could you step outside so I can get dressed?"

He nodded disappointedly. "I'm sorry that I startled you."

Lois thought about his dejected expression as the bathroom door closed behind him. The doctor had said something about Clark needing to put things in place on his own, but she couldn't see how his confusion was helping anything.

After dressing and attempting to restore some type of order to the bathroom, she went into the bedroom. She looked around warily; she was still a little shell shocked from the way he had popped up behind her before.

"So, what do you want to do?"

Lois jumped as Clark appeared from the other side of the bed. "I… what were… Um, I'm going to go to bed. What were you doing?"

"Push-ups," he replied as if was what he did every night. Looking at his build, Lois realized that it just might be. "I had some pent up energy."

Lois forced a smile and released a nervous laugh. He was _so_ not good at subtlety. "Okay, well, now that you're good and tired…" She waved a hand toward the door.

Clark's grin widened. "You mean I don't get to shower with you _or_ sleep with you?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

Lois coughed. "Beca… because this is your parent's house."

"They're not here."

Her mouth dropped open at his forwardness. This whole situation had her unsettled. He was not acting like himself and it was disconcerting. "They could be… they could come home at any minute."

"You said that they would be gone for a couple of days."

One of her eyes twitched briefly. She wished that his amnesia would have affected his short-term memory instead. "Okay, here's the deal: I don't get any sleep when you're in the bed so you sleep on the couch. You kick… and flail. The snoring is unbearable."

"Good try. I know the real reason." Clark smiled and stepped closer.

"You do?"

He nodded and smirked. "We're waiting. If we're going to make it to the wedding night we have to avoid tight spots. I get it."

Lois's eyes popped. He wasn't amnesiac, he was delusional. "You sleep on the couch," she repeated, grabbing a pillow from the bed and tossing it at him.

He laughed as he caught the pillow and moved forward. "No Good Night kiss? That can't be against the rules."

Lois kept him at bay with a Heisman stiff-arm to the chest. "You're not yourself. I wouldn't feel right about… taking advantage of you like this," she told him, fighting to keep the smugness out of her voice.

Clark leaned against the door jamb as Lois retreated, thinking about her words. Had he been in his right mind, he would have recognized her tone of voice and realized that she was placating him. But, he wasn't in his right mind - or his left mind for that matter - so he listened to her words and thought she was genuinely concerned.

"It's scary to me too," he stated flatly. "Nothing is familiar to me except you. I guess that's why I want to stay close."

Lois groaned internally. "Listen, Smallville, I'm not so sure you should trust that head of yours…"

He smiled at her use of the nickname. She had corrected herself earlier after he'd asked if it was a pet name. Her use of it now made meant that she was relaxing. "I can trust what I know about us and I can prove it. I remember the day we met."

She chuckled. "I doubt that. You don't even know your middle name."

"You almost ran me over with your car."

Lois rolled her eyes. "Lucky guess."

"You meet a lot of guys that way?" he asked, laughing at her expression. "Well, I remember that I was naked, and you liked what you saw."

"I did not… look," she finished lamely, adding the last part when he looked at her skeptically. She cleared her throat. "…I didn't see a thing."

Clark grinned at her obvious attempt at covering. "Well, I liked what _I_ saw."

Lois scoffed.

"I did," he insisted. "You were flustered. It was cute. You made me feel safe. Like now."

Lois started to run a hand through her hair but stopped when her fingers got tangled in the damp strands. Clark's recollection of that day made her mind go back as well. That had been before the plaid… before learning who he was… before he became off-limits.

It also brought back the fact that she _had_, in fact, looked. Twice.

Since then, she had tucked him neatly away into the friend category, which had been quite easy to do once she'd gotten to know him. He'd always seemed to be a flight risk, which was why she took pleasure in keeping him on his toes. It was her job to help him get over himself.

Only now, he wasn't the one that was rattled.

_And_ he wasn't himself.

Clark took her lack of response to be disbelief. "I felt that you were totally out of my league. I'm just glad I was wrong."

_Okay, enough._ She was going to end this charade before she started to believe him.

"Clark, listen…" Lois was interrupted when her cell phone began ringing. From the sound of the ringtone, she knew who was calling.

Her cousin had impeccable timing.


	4. Chapter 4

Lois made her way downstairs, a migraine sitting heavy on her forehead. She had spent a majority of the night staring into the blackness of her eye-mask, willing herself to sleep. Her mind, however, had been hijacked by thoughts of a certain amnesiac farm boy.

She'd come really close to breaking down and telling him everything, but her cousin had talked her off that ledge once again. It's not that she wanted to fry his brain and leave him in a vegetative state but…the whole doting fiancé act had her really creeped out. It was random, weird, and most importantly, distracting.

That night she had been driven to counting imaginary sheep, a last ditch effort so pathetic that under normal circumstances she would have rolled her eyes at its mere suggestion.

But if it had meant at least a few hours of sleep, she would have happily gone outside and counted the _actual_ ones penned up behind the barn.

"Clark?"

He was at the stove, already dressed in trademark jeans and red flannel. "You're up," he said, flashing her a wide smile.

Lois looked around the kitchen. The table was set, and a virtual banquet – pancakes, pastries, bacon, fresh fruit - had been set out on the counter. "What is this?"

"An apology."

"Funny, it looks like breakfast."

She yawned. He had a cup of coffee in her hands before her mouth closed.

Eying him uncomfortably, she managed a weak smile. "Thanks."

He grinned broadly and went back to his post, flipping a blueberry pancake onto an already enormous stack.

Lois sunk into a seat at the table and tried to process this new carefree Clark. The Clark she knew skulked around like he had some kind of incurable disease. She had always figured he was just a moper by design but this little experiment in nature versus nurture had shot that theory to hell.

During one of her many sleepless hours a bizarre thought had struck her, and it continued to nag at the back of her mind. She had never paid much attention when Chloe or Lana would talk about the mystery surrounding their friend, but she was beginning to wonder;

What if Clark Kent really did have some deep, dark secret?

"Over easy, right?"

Lois' head snapped up. "Huh?"

Clark was holding up two eggs. A goofy smile played on his lips.

"Oh," she shook off her last thought. Clark Kent, deeper than a shallow puddle? Not likely. "Yeah."

He cracked the shells and the yolks met the hot pan with a hiss.

After washing up, Clark made them each a plate and joined Lois at the table. He watched her carefully as she took her first bite. He smiled when she let out a long "mmmmmmm" and began to dig in.

After a few minutes, Clark broke the silence.

"So, I remembered something."

"About your parents?" She hoped.

"No, about us."

Lois couldn't get a handle on how his brain worked.

"What is it this time?"

"When we got engaged."

Lois choked on her eggs.

Clark reached over to pat her back. "I took you on a picnic out next to the lake. I had everything set up when I brought you there, I had even bought a truck load of white lilies… Those are your favorites, right?"

Lois blinked in surprise. She hadn't ever told him that. "Yeah… they are."

Clark nodded confidently. "I made a path with the flowers and I made you guess what was on the menu as I fed you blindfolded." He laughed at the memory. "Then, when were getting ready to go, I kneeled."

Lois's breath hitched. She could almost see the scene he had described… it was sweet and romantic. People didn't do that kind of thing for her.

Clark noticed that she didn't look too happy and reached out for her hand. "Did I get it wrong?"

Lois met his eyes and sighed. "You didn't pro…" She immediately cut herself off. She wasn't supposed to correct him but it had almost slipped out.

Clark slowly released her hand. A look of confusion contorted his face. "I didn't…?"

Lois shook her head and watched as Clark ran a hand over his face and dropped his shoulders. She waited curiously to see what would happen now that she had contradicted something he remembered. Going from Chloe's theory, she wondered if his brain would implode or something. Guilt crawled up her back and settled on her shoulders as she imagined explaining to the Jonathan and Martha how she put their son in a coma.

The twinkle in Clark's eye when he looked up caused her babbling thoughts to stutter to a halt.

"Oops," he offered with a wide grin.

Lois frowned. "Oops?"

"I let the cat out of the bag didn't I?"

_Let the cat out of… How does he remember stupid sayings like that and forget his phone number? _She arched an eyebrow. "What?"

Clark laughed. He liked it when she did the eyebrow thing. "I didn't propose, did I?"

Lois slowly shook her head. _Why would he be grinning about that?_

"That whole scene…" he explained without missing a beat. "I think that was what I was planning. It was going to be a surprise."

She dropped her head into her hands and groaned silently. She was starting to fear that this would never end.

Clark reached over and ran a hand lightly over her hair. Sure, he had ruined the surprise, but he didn't understand why she was so upset.

"Ooh! Pancakes!" Chloe exclaimed as she entered the kitchen. She was a bit perplexed about what she had just walked in on. Clark's hand now rested on the back of Lois's chair. She shot her cousin a look. _What the hell is that all about?_

Lois returned a look of her own. _I told you!_

Sliding out of her chair, Lois forced a smile. "Chloe! Join us! There's plenty."

"Yes, I made a lot…" Clark gestured to the spread on the table.

Lois nodded and stepped toward the door Chloe had just passed through. "I need some air… I'm going to go for a walk."

Clark sadly watched her dart outside. He turned back to face Chloe. "I hate that this is so hard on her."

Chloe's eyebrows rose as she munched on a slice of bacon. "Well, if having someone cook a breakfast like this is too much for Lois, you can cook for me anytime."

Clark smiled. Considering the tense circumstances, he was grateful for her humor. "I think I did something to hurt her."

Chloe frowned. "You mean just now?" Okay, there was the possibility that he might not know his own strength, but it wasn't like he'd been all 'pet the rabbits, George' to Lois's head when she walked in.

"No, I mean before…" Clark sighed and rose to take his plate to the sink. "Do I need to be worried about this?"

Chloe turned to see Clark holding a picture of Lana. "Um, what do you mean?"

"Lois seemed really surprised that I didn't recognize this girl, and she kept getting edgy when I'd ask." So, he had stopped asking, but he was starting to suspect something. "Did she come between us?"

Chloe choked back a laugh. She was starting to feel some sympathy for Lois… but not a lot. It was too good. "Not exactly."

"What does that mean?"

"She's your ex."

Clark looked at the picture skeptically. "Really?"

"You sound surprised."

"I mean, she's pretty but…" Clark trailed off. He frowned at his next thought. "I didn't…?"

Chloe tilted her head, not following.

"Cheat, Chloe."

Chloe fought to keep her strait-face. "I can honestly say that you have never cheated on Lois."

Clark let out a quick breath of relief. "Good. I mean, I didn't think I could have." He shook his head. "You'd have to be a complete idiot to take her for granted." Satisfied, he folded the picture and put it away in one of the drawers.

Chloe joined him at the sink. "Clark," she hedged, cautiously. She had her own ideas, but she was dying to get a better understanding of what exactly was going on in that newly-scrubbed mind of his. "Don't you think it's a little strange that you've forgotten everything about your life, but you remember Lois?"

Clark shrugged and looked out the small window. In the distance he could see Lois staving off Shelby's playful advances, and sneezing when she failed. "I love her. How could I possibly forget her?"

Chloe didn't have an answer. For numerous reasons.

He turned back to her, his expression serious. "There's something else we need to talk about."

Chloe quirked an eyebrow.

"The door."

* * *

"I'm an alien?"

"No!" Chloe corrected quickly. And then just as quickly, she corrected her correction. "Well, yes. Technically."

Clark shook his head in disbelief. "An alien…"

"Terran-ly challenged." Chloe argued, sitting next to him on the couch. "Look, Clark, it's okay. It doesn't change anything."

She had taken him to the loft with the hopes of avoiding Lois. She knew that the conversation would be difficult enough; she really didn't need her cousin thrown into the mix.

Chloe had done her best to narrate his story. She was still a little fuzzy on some of the details herself, but she knew the big stuff. Meteor shower, Krypton, an arsenal of superpowers. She was jut grateful that he had managed to get this far without another … mishap.

Clark stared blankly at the clapboard floor. "Yesterday when I pulled the door off its hinges, you lied to Lois. You said the wind did it." He stiffened. "She doesn't know."

Chloe bit her lip. "Well, no."

"How could I keep this from her?"

"Clark, it's complicated."

Things were suddenly beginning to make sense for Clark. He rubbed a rough hand over his face. "I could tell that she was pulling away from me. At first I thought it was just hard for her to see me like this. And then I thought maybe it had to do with that Lana girl. But it's this isn't it? It's the secrets." Flooded with determination, he shot up. "I have to tell her."

Chloe was right behind him, maneuvering herself between him and the staircase. "Whoa there, cowboy." She put her hands up. "You can't do that."

"She's my fiancee - or she's supposed to be, no, she will be... She has a right to know who I am." He made another move for the stairs.

Chloe sidestepped, blocking his exit. "Look, you had reasons for keeping this a secret. You may not remember them, but that doesn't make them any less valid. It's best if we figure out how to fix this first. Once you've got your memory back, you can make all the declarations you want."

Chloe's hip buzzed. She looked down and flicked off her pager.

"That's my source at the MPD. He's emailed me the information on the owner of that day pass." She looked at him and placed a comforting hand on his forearm. "Please, Clark. Just trust me, okay?"

He looked into the petite blonde's eyes and was struck by how deep that trust seemed to run. "Okay."

"I know this must be hard, but it'll all work out." She squeezed his arm. "I promise."

He managed a small smile that she could tell was for her benefit.

"Thanks, Chloe."

* * *

Lois caught up with Chloe just as she reached her car.

"Where's Clark?" she asked, scanning the driveway.

"He's in the loft," Chloe said. "He's going through some… scrapbooks."

"Please tell me you've got good news on the memory retrieval front," Lois pleaded.

She was getting desperate. After ducking out on Clark, she had managed to walk all the way to the Kent's mailbox before realizing that she was still in her pajamas.

It was becoming all too clear that she was starting to crack.

"Define good," Chloe said.

"Any."

"Oh. Then no."

Lois threw up her hands. "What have you been doing for the last 24 hours?"

"I was hunkered down in the Metropolis public library trying to get a handle on this amnesia thing," Chloe defended. "I tried calling. You never answered."

"I lost my phone hiding in some bushes." Lois stopped Chloe's next question with a hand. "Don't ask."

"Well, I called to let you know that I made some headway."

"Are you telling me you know why Clark is acting this way?"

A beat. "I think so, yeah."

"Well?"

Chloe took a deep breath and then launched into what she hoped was some kind of explanation. "Memories are divided into two categories: declarative and nondeclarative. Declarative is memory of facts – name, date of birth, telephone number - all the things that Clark lost. Nondeclarative works on an unconscious level. It's why he can still walk and talk and do all the things that a person does naturally without thought. It's actually really fascinating the way the cognitive map is laid out. There are distinct types of memory for place and response, which are distinguished by their performance characteristics as well as –"

"Get to the point, Chlo."

"Clark's subconscious has the hots for you."

"You have got to be kidding me," Lois groaned, hiding her face in her hands.

"Sorry, Lo. But the science isn't on your side this time."

Lois peeked through her fingers. "This isn't science. It's science _fiction_."

Chloe smirked. If her cousin only knew…

"I know the situation is a little awkward." Lois's eyebrows flew up and Chloe tried again, "Ok, _a lot_ awkward. But imagine how this is for Clark. He doesn't remember anything about his life. His fiancée is avoiding him like the plague –"

"I am not his fiancée!" Lois shrieked.

"But as far as he's concerned, you are."

"Actually, he thinks I'm his girlfriend."

Chloe rolled her eyes at the semantics. "Same difference."

"For you maybe," Lois countered. "As if subconscious Lois would ever agree to a proposal after two months of dating…"

"Subconscious Lois?"

"I mean, what is she? Desperate?"

Now Chloe was intrigued. "Just how long would it take 'Subconscious Lois' to accept a proposal?"

"From Subconscious Clark?"

"So there is a difference?"

"Oh yeah…" Lois caught herself and backpedaled. Fast. "You know, because Subconscious Lois doesn't sell herself short."

"Riiiiight," Chloe drawled, amused. "You are aware, dear cousin, that you are talking about yourself in the third person?"

Lois sighed. "It's been a long day."

Chloe eyed Lois' sleepwear. "I can see that."

Indignant. "What? Motley Crue rules."

Chloe shook her head. They were getting off track. "Lois, I know this is hard but you have to do a better job of keeping up appearances. He thinks he did something wrong."

"He did! God, Chloe. He has us built up to be some epic romance! We aren't even friends!"

Chloe shot her a skeptical look. "Now who's the one with the selective memory? You know you and Clark care about each other," she argued. She never _had_ bought that mortal enemies bluff. And then she added, "He feels really guilty."

Lois sighed. And now she did, too. Perfect. "Well, what do I do?"

Chloe shrugged. "Give the guy a break." She pulled her cousin into a hug, hoping to settle her nerves. Or maybe to just keep her from bolting when she made her next suggestion. "And if you can stomach it, a kiss wouldn't hurt."

Lois made a face. Things just kept getting better and better. "It could," she admitted under her breath. "Why is it that you get to run in, say 'ooh pancakes,' drop some science and then run out on me?"

Chloe fought to hide her amusement. "I'm not running out on you. I'm trying to find a way out of this for you." She held up her pager. "I think this is the break we need."

"Here's an idea. I'll do the investigating and you watch him." Lois reached for the pager while Chloe deftly kept it out of her reach.

"That wouldn't work," Chloe said with a smirk.

Lois bracketed her hands on her hips in frustration. "Why not?"

"Because it's my lead... and you're still wearing pajamas."

* * *

Clark turned the paper over in his hands. None of the symbols looked even remotely familiar. He wondered how something that was so much a part of him could feel so foreign.

He reached into the large manila folder and pulled out more pictures of the Kawatche cave wall, idly flipping through them. He stopped when he reached yet another snapshot of Lana.

He let out a groan of frustration and crumpled the photo, tossing it in the trash bin.

Clark raked his hands through his dark mop of hair, and looked around his supposed sanctuary. It was filled with objects that held no sentiment. Pictures of strangers.

Nothing about this world made sense to him.

Except Lois.

Or, at least she had. He had flubbed the status of their relationship. She wasn't his fiancée.

He wondered what else he had wrong.

Clark walked to his desk and began to rummage through it. He owed it to Lois to do his best to regain his memory. Once he had it back, he could tell her everything. No more secrets. No more lies.

They could have a fresh start.

Clark stopped when he saw something hidden way back in one of the drawers. He reached in and pulled it out.

It was a small lead box.


	5. Chapter 5

Lois climbed the stairs to the loft with a slight frown. She imagined that Clark was up there brooding and marveled that even without his memory he had resorted to old habits. In a way, that was comforting. His sudden confidence and forwardness had been knocking her off-balance and it was nice to know that some things about him hadn't changed. It gave her hope that soon he would be back to normal.

"Lois…" his voice called out in a whisper. "…It's hot."

She shook her head in annoyance when she saw his legs hanging over the side of the couch. It bothered her a little that he could be so relaxed and comfortable when she felt in constant danger of jumping out of her skin. She could see his shirt had been haphazardly thrown across the back of the couch. If this was another attempt at getting into her pants, she was going to scream.

"Nice try, Smallville. Put your shirt back on," she said around a yawn.

"…hot."

Lois laughed wryly. "You're not that cute."

"…help…"

"Clark, I'm telling you, this whole seduction thing is not working. It's been a long day, an even longer night…" _And you're really not making it any easier by stripping naked every chance you get._

She cautiously stepped close enough to peer over the back of the couch. She was struck with an irrational fear that he would grab her and pull her on top of him. Instead of seeing the flirty grin she expected, his face was contorted in pain.

Dashing around the couch, she bent over him. "Clark! What's wrong?"

Clark groaned in response and she reached out to touch his shoulder, pulling back abruptly when she felt the heat of his skin. Her hand moved to his forehead, brushing away the damp hair that stuck there. He was burning up. "Clark?"

"The rock…" he muttered. The effort to say those words seemed to take what remained of his energy, and his head rolled to the side.

She slid her hand to his shoulder and shook it lightly. "Clark?"

Realizing that he was unconscious, Lois spun around looking for a hint about what he had been trying to tell her. As she moved, her foot knocked against a strange metal box. Kneeling to pick it up, she noticed a small rock on the floor next to it. She recognized the rock to be a meteorite, having seen them a few times during her stay in Smallville, but unlike the others that usually were dull and nondescript - this one seemed to be glowing. The act of picking the meteorite and the metal box up brought them closer to Clark's head and she jumped when he moaned loudly.

Lois looked from the stone in her hand to Clark's face. His face was becoming flushed and his breath was labored. The veins on his neck became pronounced, as if the blood inside of them was coagulating in front of her eyes. She had seen a reaction like this before, but never this fast. 

_Radiation poisoning._

Gasping she looked at the rock and the box again, her thoughts settling on the possibility that the metal box could be made of lead. She dropped the rock inside and snapped the lid closed. Dashing to the other side of the room, she stashed the container on top of a bookcase, the furthest place she could find that was away from Clark without letting him out of her line of sight.

As she ran back to the couch, she wondered why the possible alien radiation would cause a reaction like that in Clark but not in her. Relief coursed through her when she saw that he was breathing easier and his face was clearing.

_Wrong. Not radiation. Freak allergy or an infection or something. That's it._

Lois figured that he had to have been mistaken about the meteor rock being the cause of his malaise. The fact that his improvement coincided with her moving the lead box was just coincidence. Clark shivered and she reached out to touch his brow again, finding it to still be warm. The presence of the fever meant that his body was trying to fight off its ailment. That was a good sign.

Shaking her head at her initial overreaction, Lois fumbled for the spare chair. Adrenaline was seeping from her and being replaced with her forgotten fatigue. She decided that she would sit down and watch him for a minute before going to the house for a damp washcloth and some water. Blinking tiredly, she leaned in the chair and placed an arm along the couch next to Clark's chest. Bracing her chin in her hand, she reached with the other to check his temperature one more time.

Clark watched with soft smile as Lois's eyes fluttered open. Her eyebrows twitched in confusion as she became aware of her position. He'd had a similar experience when he'd woken up an hour earlier. Somewhere between the time he'd heard her come up the stairs to the loft looking for him and now, she had fallen asleep with her head on his chest.

Finally coherent, Lois sprang upright in her chair. The blanket that Clark had pulled from the back of the couch slid from her shoulders as she moved.

"Hey," Clark greeted.

Lois sucked in a quick breath. "Hey, yourself." She rubbed the side of her face and her eyes widened in horror. _Oh God._

"Is that drool?"

The small patch of wetness on Clark's chest was her answer.

"It's okay." Clark chuckled. "You were tired."

Lois's mortification was only heightened by his amusement. "You look better," she offered trying to ignore her embarrassment while wiping her face.

Clark nodded and sat up a little weakly. "I feel better. Thank you."

"I didn't do anything," she said, scoffing in a self-depreciating manner. "I meant to get you some water… You should be pretty dry." She stood up.

Clark smiled. He reached for her hand as she started to go. "Don't leave."

Lois looked down at their joined hands and then back at him. "I'll be right back," she offered, pulling away. When she got to the top of the stairs, she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. "I'm really glad you're okay."

Blinking, Lois shook herself and headed down the stairs. The huskiness in her voice could not be confused for sleepiness. He had really had her scared for a little while. They were friends, and she would be concerned about any friend in a situation like this… but the depth of what she had felt… well, that was surprising.

_It's just the situation that's got me flustered. Nothing more._

Clark watched her leave, and then laced his hands together on his lap. Waking up in an alley with a petite blonde he didn't recognize looking at him had been startling. Being brought to a house full of pictures of people who were supposed to be his parents and relatives had been perplexing. Learning that he was really a visitor from another planet with super powers had been mind-boggling. But seeing Lois Lane walk through the door, hair pulled back into a messy ponytail after a long day at work – that had been… that had been _right_.

Regardless of what Chloe had said about her cousin's relationship with him, Lois was pulling away, and it made him nervous. That rock, the one in the lead case, was dangerous. From the amount of pain and disorientation he had experienced from that brief contact with it, he had no doubt that it could have killed him. Would have killed him – if Lois hadn't come along when she did. And she didn't even know what that was all about.

The secrets would only continue to rip them apart. Chloe had said that he should wait until he remembered why he hadn't told Lois the truth about himself, but right now, he couldn't imagine that any of those reasons would mean anything if it meant that he would lose the woman he loved.

Having no memory of anything but her, he had been convinced that the woman in front of him was his wife, and then he realized that they were just engaged… only to find out that he hadn't yet proposed. Slowly but surely, the fragile hold that he had on the world was cracking, and only one thing remained at the foundation: he loved her.

_And that's all that matters._

Feeling a new sense of resolve, he pulled his shirt from the back of the couch and pulled it on. Hearing footsteps, he sat up straighter as Lois returned to the loft with a glass of water.

"Here you go," she said, handing it to him.

He accepted it and took a long drink. Lois gingerly lowered herself onto the sofa beside him.

"While I watched you sleep, I, um, I did a lot of thinking."

Lois smirked. "A lot of thinking? How long was I out?"

"I'm not sure… but I watched you for about an hour."

Lois unconsciously ran a hand over her hair. "I put on a better show when I'm awake."

"I was thinking about us."

Lois slumped back into the couch. _Of course you were… because you don't think about anything else._

Clark continued unaware of Lois's thoughts. "…About us, and about how this amnesia affects us. There has to be something profound about this whole thing. I have to believe that because all of this can't be for nothing."

Lois's head tilted to the side as she listened.

"I think my having amnesia gives us a second chance."

She frowned. "A second chance at what?"

He shifted on the couch so he could face her. "To be honest."

Lois's eyes popped.

"There aren't that many things that I know right now. Maybe that's why this is so clear. What would you do if you were in my position… having no memory? How would you know who to trust?"

Lois couldn't pull her gaze away from the intensity of his. "I guess… I'd go with my gut."

He nodded. "And my gut tells me that I trust you. With everything."

Lois finally broke the stare. "Clark, I should tell you…"

"Let me go first."

She put a hand on his arm. "No, you really need to know this…"

"If I want us to be together in every way some day - and I do - then I need you to know everything…"

"I'm really hoping that Chloe's theory about the exploding brain was wrong - because I really don't want to cross your wires - but this has gone too far…"

In their efforts to be heard, neither of them was really hearing the other…

"I'm an alien." "We hate each other."

...Except, they both heard that part.

"You're a what?" "Excuse me?"

Clark recovered first. "Why did you say that we hate each other?"

"It's the truth!"

"That's absurd."

Lois scoffed and jumped up from the couch. "Moreso than you saying that you're an alien?"

Clark stood as well. "It's the truth!"

"So now you're a parrot and an alien?"

Clark looked lost. "A parrot?"

Lois shook her head in exasperation and raised her hands in front of her. She flapped the fingers of one hand to mime a mouth talking. "It's the truth!" She flapped the fingers of the other hand in response. "That's absurd!"

"It is," Clark insisted quietly.

Lois looked at his dejected expression and lowered her hands. She had spent the entire weekend wishing for the old Clark to come back, and his current broody expression was the first time she saw old Clark peeking through. That alone showed her that he believed what he was saying, as ridiculous as it sounded to her.

"And we don't hate each other," Clark added, his confidence returning. "I can see that."

Lois shook her head wryly. "One of our stories isn't true, but it's not mine."

"We don't act like we hate each other," he observed.

"And you don't look like a Martian."

"I'm not from Mars."

Lois chuckled. This conversation was insane. "Oh, my bad. I forgot to ask what planet you were supposedly from."

"Krypton."

_Who-ton?_ She sighed. "Sounds like something you put on a salad. Who told you that you were an alien?"

"Chloe."

Lois's eyes narrowed. "Chloe told you that you were an alien?" She smiled. "Seriously?" She started looking around for the hidden camera.

Clark watched her move about the loft, looking under chairs and blankets. "Chloe explained it to me. I have powers because I'm not from this planet. Remember the front door?"

"Freak wind," Lois muttered off-handedly, still in the midst of her search.

"I pulled it off by accident because I didn't know my strength. And that rock? The one you moved? I think it made me sick because it is a piece of my home planet."

"Chloe told you that too?"

"No. She didn't say anything about it…"

Lois crossed her arms across her chest and looked at him from where she had halted her search of the other side of the loft. "You were born on a meteor rock?"

Clark frowned. "No…" Then he realized that she was goading him and still didn't believe what he was saying. He decided that he would have to prove it. Chloe had told him that he could move fast. _Really_ fast… but he hadn't tried it yet. 

Focusing on a spot next to her, he darted… and ran through the wall.

Lois's mouth dropped open as Clark disappeared and a hole appeared in the barn wall next to her. Running to the new man-sized window, she poked her head through and saw Clark lying on the ground below. Still in shock, she backed away from the hole and ran down the stairs.

When she arrived outside, Clark was standing and brushing dirt off of his shirt and jeans.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Clark looked up from his dirty clothes and started laughing. _I need to work on my takeoffs… and landings for that matter._

Lois stepped closer and looked for broken bones. He looked perfectly fine. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No."

Lois looked up at the damage to the barn. "You just ran through a wall - three stories up - and there's not a scratch on you?"

Clark rubbed his hands through his hair vigorously to remove the dirt. "That's because I'm an alien."

She watched him speechlessly. She had to admit that he'd moved faster than anyone she'd ever seen before - almost too fast to even be seen. "If you are an alien – and I'm not saying that you are – what all can you do?"

"I can hear and see things from far away, and…" Clark looked around. Earlier, Chloe had given him a tire iron to bend to test his strength. The tractor was parked not too far away from where they were standing. He sauntered over to it and picked it up. With one hand.

For having just made an acquaintance with an alien life form, Lois kept her cool quite well. _I guess I can't call him Smallville anymore._ "Do you think you could, uh, put that down?"

Clark lowered the tractor to the ground, using the other hand for control. The one handed thing had really been for effect. He walked back to where Lois was standing. She was doing the eyebrow thing again, but was obviously speechless.

"Now about that other thing," he said.

"The other thing?" Lois stammered. She didn't know what the hell she was supposed to think right now.

"You said one of our stories wasn't true. I proved mine."

"A little show of strength doesn't make you an alien," she countered weakly.

"I said I was an alien. You said that we hated each other. I proved mine," he repeated. "Your turn."

Before she could respond, he put his hands on both sides of her face and leaned down to capture her lips with his own. It was a risk. Hell, yeah, it was a risk. He had just told her that he was an alien. She had the right to run away from him screaming in fear and possibly disgust… but she hadn't. Sure, there was still a chance that she didn't believe him, but she knew he was different, and it didn't turn her off. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't pushing him away in disgust.

She was kissing him back.

Smiling against her lips, he slid his hands to her shoulders and then to her waist, pulling her closer still. Finally, he pulled away and stepped back. They were both panting but his wasn't from a lack of breath.

After two days of her dodging him and slipping out of his every attempt at touching her intimately, he had kissed her. He had to stop now or he would never let go.

Lois stood frozen in the spot where he had released her. _Holy…_

Her mind was so numb that she didn't remember what came after that. So, she just thought it again.

_Holy…_

To think of it as their first kiss meant that she was thinking that there would be more. No, she should be thinking of it as their only kiss – scratch that – she shouldn't be thinking of the kiss at all. In fact she shouldn't be thinking about the fact that even with his strangeness, he would make a damn sexy boyfriend… someone who could actually handle what she dealt out…

Lois mentally slapped herself. Lack of sleep was making her as delusional as he was.

After five minutes had passed and she hadn't moved, Clark took a hesitant step toward her, kneeling to pick up something from the ground as he neared.

"Hey!" Lois abruptly sprang to awareness. "You just poked me with a stick!"

"I wanted to make sure you were alive."

"You use sticks on sharks or eels to see if they're alive – dangerous things – not people," she admonished, spinning to face him.

"Dangerous things," Clark repeated, nodding seriously and indicating her by pointing the stick he still held.

Most dangerous things have a tell before they strike – Clark saw Lois's left eye narrow slightly and knew what was coming.

"That is not fair!" Lois yelled.

She'd pounced, but he'd ducked. Clark now stood 50 feet away in the middle of the field laughing at her.

_Okay, now he's just showing off._

"Would you mind coming back over here… slowly?" At this rate, the entire county was going to know about his _possible_ alieness. Whatever was up with him, it was obviously something that pre-mindswipe had been a closely kept family secret. It should probably stay that way. 

Clark walked back to her with the smirk still on his face. "I win."

Lois crossed her arms on her chest. "You _so_ do not win."

_Damn._ She hadn't meant to agree that there was a game.

Clark's face widened with the grin that was becoming so familiar to her. "We don't hate each other, or you wouldn't have kissed me."

Lois caught herself before correcting him that _he_ had in fact been the one that kissed her. It would have only led to a futile discussion about who had then kissed who back.

"Admit it… there is something between us. I _know_ it's real… I know what I feel is real."

Lois lifted her chin. "Not likely. We argue nonstop. We fight all the time. We both get a kick out of picking on each other. I mean, what do you call that?"

"Foreplay," he replied bluntly. 

Lois swallowed. She had walked right into that one.

"I'm going to go with my gut again and say that all of that other stuff is just cover for what we really feel. Like there is some secret understanding between the two of us that we would never really call it what it is."

"I…"

Oh, yeah. Clark recognized the signs of retreat. "Is there something here?" he interjected before she could complete her denial. "Between us?"

Lois sighed. "Maybe," she offered reluctantly.

"I'm not going to ask for much, Lois. I just want to see where it goes. Do you think we could try?"

Lois looked uncomfortable with the suggestion.

"One day. Starting tomorrow. One date… and then we'll make the call after that." He had to believe that it the call would be in his favor, but first he needed her to agree.

She regarded him in silence for a moment. Maybe in some way, his lack of memory of his old life made him more like his real self. Maybe that meant that she could be more like her real self too. The self that didn't have to hide behind aloofness… the self that wasn't too hard to consider falling in love.

The self that finally wanted to play along.

"One day. Starting tomorrow," she agreed with finality.

Clark grinned and stepped closer. "I told you I w…"

She cut him off with a punch to the shoulder. "You _so_ do not win."

She'd punched him, so he kissed her. Again.


	6. Chapter 6

The brass bell chirped as Lois tried to pull a reluctant Clark into the small gift shop. He was making her work for it, digging in his heels just outside the threshold, as she tugged at his arm. He smiled innocently and she knew what he was waiting for. Sighing for effect, she did her best to look thoroughly annoyed as she gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

He shot her a smug smile and then breezed through the doorway.

"Very funny, Smallville."

The shop seemed misplaced in the big city, its shelves lined with handicrafts and knickknacks, its air slightly smoky from cinnamon incense. Normally Lois avoided these types of tourist traps, but she and Clark had been aimlessly wandering Metropolis for close to an hour and the hand-carved sign had been mildly intriguing. The way Clark's face had fallen when she suggested taking a quick peek inside had sealed the deal.

"You never did explain why you call me that."

"You live there," she answered dismissively, taking off towards the nearest display.

"So do you."

Lois rolled her eyes. "Well, yeah, _now_ I do. But you grew up there." She began to stroll the aisles, admiring the shelves of glass ornaments. Clark followed close behind, his fingers laced easily with hers.

"So did Chloe."

With her free hand Lois ran a finger along a rack of turquoise jewelry. "You were born there." She stopped when she reached a large pendant necklace.

"Strike three," Clark argued.

Lois swung his hand, playfully. "Oh, so you'd rather I call you Crouton?"

"Krypton."

"Sorry to break this to you but..." She fisted the soft cotton of his t-shirt and moved in dangerously close. So close that Clark could feel her breath on his lips. "You'll always be Smallville to me."

Clark smiled and dropped his lips to hers. She happily draped her arms over his broad shoulders and deepened the kiss. Lois was positive that in the past 3 hours she had inhaled more air from Clark Kent than from the actual atmosphere.

At the sudden revelation, Lois broke away. "Oh God. We're going to be one of them aren't we?"

"Who?"

Lois wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Those sickeningly sweet couples who make everyone go into sugar shock with their disgusting PDAs and excessive use of pet names." She shuddered just thinking about it.

Clark quirked an eyebrow. "Oh, so we're a couple now?"

Lois rolled her eyes. _Of all the things to latch on to_…"You know what I mean," she countered, trying to regain the upper hand she had held since they had begun this little experiment. "And enough with the smirking. It was just yesterday that your subconscious had us booking a chapel."

Clark shrugged. "I think you're overreacting," he said. And then with a sly smile added, "Lo-Lo."

She punched his shoulder. "Very funny, _Clark Bar_. Now come on, there is shopping to be done."

He just grinned as she spun on her heels and set off towards the back of the store.

She may have started their date with guarded reluctance, but by hour two Lois seemed to have warmed to the idea of…_them_. At the very least she was giving it a fair shot. Which was more than he expected. He liked to believe that maybe he was just that charming, but that seemed less than likely.

Instead he held onto the hope that the gnawing feeling in his stomach, the one that told him that everything about her was _right_, was the one thing his faulty-memory hadn't concocted.

When he found her again, she was considering her next purchase.

"What are you looking at?"

"Bookends," she said, inspecting the pewter figurines in her hands. "I've been meaning to get some."

She held them up for him to see.

"What do you think?"

Clark blinked. "They're…monkeys." Pondering monkeys to be exact. Sitting atop large stacks of dictionaries.

"I think they are kind of attractive...in a hideous sort of way."

Clark thought back to the farm house and the bedroom she had evidently bogarted. He didn't remember seeing anything in the way of reading material, other than _The Bartender's Guide_ and the occasional issue of _Modern Soldier_. "Do you even own books to prop?"

Lois scowled. "I have books..." Clark raised an eyebrow. "…In storage"

Clark laughed and pulled her in for hug, while she huffed indignantly. "Well, that's only because I don't have any bookends!" she mumbled against his chest.

That settled it. He plucked the bookends from her hands and brought them to the counter.

"What are you doing?"

Clark pulled credit card from wallet. "I'm buying you some bookends."

"I can buy my own bookends!"

He leaned in close, his lips stopping a few inches from her jaw. "Can you please let me do something nice for you?"

Lois rolled her eyes as he kissed her, incapable of maintaining her resolve as heat skirted up her spine.

The elderly clerk smiled at the young couple. "Pretty convincing," she observed.

"Please don't encourage him," Lois said with a soft smile. She turned her head so Clark couldn't continue nuzzling her neck. "They're just bookends."

"They're a gift," he insisted, reaching around her to hand his credit card to the older woman.

"A gift! How nice. Is it your birthday, dear?"

Clark shook his head. "It's a engagement present."

Lois's eyes widened and she hit him. "Clark!" She turned to the clerk and clarified, "We're not getting engaged."

"Yet," Clark added, earning him another nudge from Lois.

"Oh! Well, in that case you may want to get them engraved," the clerk said, offering her upsell with amusement. "You can come back and pick them up before closing, or we can have them sent to you…" She paused and looked at the address on Clark's driver's license. "… in Smallville."

"Engraving…That's a great idea." Clark put his hands on Lois's hips and gently moved her to the side. "Don't look."

Lois scoffed. "You are not engraving my monkey bookends."

Clark attempted to arch his eyebrow to mimic her serious expression. "Don't look."

Lois crossed her arms and turned her back to him so he could write his secret message on the pad the older woman had supplied. "Is there a good place to eat around here?"

* * *

"Here."

Lois handed Clark a wad of bills as they exited the diner.

He stared at them, dubiously. "I know I'm a good kisser, but I didn't realize it warranted a tip."

"It's not your tip. It's Sheila's."

Clark's eyes went wide. "Our waitress? You stole her tip?"

Lois snorted. "It's not stealing if it didn't belong to her." Her eyes narrowed as she thought back to bleach-blonde and her not-so-friendly advice. "She had some nerve telling us to 'get a room'"

"Still…" Clark put the would-be tip back into his wallet.

"I didn't take it all… I merely scaled back our initial gratuities."

Clark eyed her wearily. He was almost afraid to ask. "How much did you leave, exactly?"

"Forty-eight cents."

"Lois!"

Over the past couple of days Clark had been finding comfort in the smallest moments of synchronicity – where the real Lois seemed the perfect mirror image to the Lois of his constructed memory. With her arms crossed tightly across her chest, and her lips pulled into a petulant scowl – this was one of those times.

"If she can't support foundling love, then I can't support her desire to be an actress," she harumphed.

He raised an eyebrow.

Lois shrugged."Every waitress wants to be an actress."

"Even in Kansas?"

"I'm sure she's got her eye on a plum role in the Grandville community player's production of Macbeth."

Clark laughed and caught her arm, pulling her flush against him. Lois stared up at him with a look of devilish innocence only she could pull off. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

The horns became a little more prominent as her gaze turned lustful. "I can think of a few things," she purred, rocking up onto her toes.

Clark's mind swam as she kissed him fully and deeply. There was something profoundly exciting about the kisses she initiated. Maybe it was the surge of hope that always accompanied them.

Out of his peripheries, he watched as a mother shielded her little boy's wide-eyes from the public grope-fest and pulled him into a nearby Laundromat.

"Maybe should head back to the farm," he mumbled against her lips.

"Best idea you've had all day."

With that he scooped her into his arms and –

"Wait!" she stopped him with a hand.

Lois pulled the elastic band off of her wrist and tied her hair up into a loose ponytail. She gave him a quick peck on the lips and then swatted him on the behind.

"Alright, Smallville. Ándale! Ándale! Arriba! Arriba!"

* * *

Whooooooooosh.

Lois opened her eyes and was greeted by familiar sea of amber grain. She rested her head against Clark's chest for long moment while she attempted to regain her bearings.

When the world had stopped spinning she took a breath and declared a shaky, "Home sweet home."

"If it weren't for you it wouldn't feel like it," Clark confessed as he set her feet on the ground.

She had to admit, without his memory, the boy was pretty smooth. Untangling herself from his arms, Lois wandered out towards the fields. She allowed herself to indulge in a few seconds of peaceful silence. On the farm moments had a way of …lingering. It was one of the few things she would openly admit loving about rural Kansas.

She snuck a sideways glance at Clark. It seemed that other things were finding their way onto the list.

"You spent your whole life here. Something must resonate."

Clark shrugged.

"No inexplicably pull to a stalk of corn? No deep-seated desire to milk something?"

He shook his head.

"Wow, there's hope for you yet."

She was rewarded with a bright smile that ignited a swarm of something in the base of her stomach. Bees or butterflies or some other appropriate cliché. Had his smiles always been so disarming? She couldn't help but wonder that if they hadn't been so few and far between with the old Clark she might have gotten to this place sooner.

Feeling things she never, ever thought she'd feel.

Clark studied her face, keenly aware that she was working through the events of the past few hours.

"All things considered, you're handling this really well."

Lois shook herself back to the present. "Mapto."

"What?"

"Mental And Physical Toughness," she explained, squaring her shoulders by rote. "It's the General's guiding philosophy. He's always been a toss you into the deep-end kind of guy."

"The General?"

Her eyebrow quirked in surprise. "Six foot two? Fatigues. Smokes a stogie?" Nothing seemed to be registering. "My dad."

She laughed as Clark's eyes went wide as he, no doubt, conjured the frightening image in his mind.

"I thought you remembered everything about me."

"Apparently my subconscious mercifully left that part hazy."

"Come on," she said, grabbing his hand, "Let's go inside."

On their way back to the yellow farm house Clark stopped in the middle of the driveway.

"What is it?"

"The barn," he said as he regarded the building with interest. "Chloe said that I spend a lot of time there."

Lois nodded. "I'm willing to bet the sofa cushions are a perfect mold of your behind."

"I've been trying to figure out why it meant so much to me." He stepped into the entrance and ran his hand along the frame's old, oak beam. "I guess it must hold happy memories or something."

"I'm not sure." Lois chewed her bottom lip. "It always seemed like kind of a lonely place to me."

"So I spend most of my time in a lonely place?"

The best she could offer was a feeble shrug. She watched his features darken, and his mouth pull into a grim, flat line as he considered this new information.

"I don't want to be alone anymore," he finally confessed, his eyes trained on his fortress of solitude.

"You don't have to," she answered, with equal sincerity.

He nodded, grateful and relieved. Whether she knew it or not, she was offering him a second chance at life. At happiness.

If his past sin was inaction, he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

The decision made, he reached out to take her hand and silently led her up the wooden staircase.

"What are we doing?"

He could feel the heat building behind his eyes. He swept her up into his arms, his lips curling into a wicked smile. "Something we'll never forget."


	7. Chapter 7

Lois sat at the computer struggling to find the right words to complete the email message she was typing. The keys clacked rapidly in response to a sudden breakthrough for a brief moment before stuttering to a halt. Biting her lip, Lois hit the Backspace key and manually erased the line she had just entered. With a sigh, she began to tentatively recompose her previous line of thought.

"I thought you were getting coffee at the Talon and coming right back."

Lois glanced up and smiled as Clark entered the kitchen. "I am. I was. I'm… just checking my email," she replied, sliding a hand to her mouse and clicking the Send button as he moved closer. "Your's is on the counter. Did you fix the door?"

"Yes." Clark moved behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, peering at the screen. "You've got a response from he asked with a smile in his voice.

"It's spam," Lois grumbled. Her back arched a little as he began kneading the muscles between her neck and shoulders. "That feels good."

Clark smiled and rubbed a hand lightly down her shoulder. "You've been a little quiet since we came back from the loft. Are you okay?"

Lois turned her head so she could glance up at him over her shoulder. "Of course."

Clark's eye narrowed. The smile she was giving him had not reached her eyes. "The barn… it was too fast, wasn't it? You didn't like it…"

Lois turned in her chair so she could get a better look at him. "No! That's not it… What we did – what you did – was great. It was amazing… you were very… um, precise."

A hint of a smile flirted at the edge of his mouth as his ego gained a little ground. He had been precise, after all. "So, what is it?"

"Nothing. I'm still a little… I just wish Chloe would call."

Clark moved to squat in front of her. "You say that but you look worried," he observed, locking on her gaze.

She sighed. "I _am_ worried. I'm worried that she won't find anything to help you get your memory back, and then… I'm worried that she will." She shook herself. This wasn't supposed to be such a heavy-handed conversation. Smirking, she tried to insert some humor. "Because then you would go back to being Mr. Broody."

Clark tilted his head to the side. "Was I really that bad?"

Lois nodded. "Yeah, but now I think I understand why. That whole 'being from another planet' thing must keep you up at nights. You always have to worry about keeping your secret safe and not running through barn walls." She arched an eyebrow pointedly at her last statement.

Clark flushed. "That reminds me, I need to fix that wall too."

_He's adorable when he's embarrassed._

Lois blanched at the thought. Suddenly, all of the times that she picked on him and teased him in order to get that exact reaction from him took on another meaning. Had she always found it empowering that she could make him squirm?

Shaking her head, she decided that it was not the case because that would mean that she had been feeling something for him all along - contrary to what she had been telling herself since the day she had learned his name.

Clark frowned as she shook her head. "I don't need to fix the hole?" he questioned.

Lois blinked at him. "What? Oh… I was thinking about something else. Sorry."

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think that getting my memory back would make me go back to being broody. I've got you to keep me on my toes." He smiled and reached for her hand. "My memories returning won't change what I remember about the past few days. Nothing will change the way I feel."

A smile made its way to Lois's lips. She wanted to believe it was true. She was too far invested for them to go back to square one now. She met his gaze and raised a brow. "And if you start getting broody?"

Clark leaned forward. "You can fix it."

"How can I do that?"

"Like this," he answered, rising from his crouched position so his head was level with hers. He began moving closer, registering the challenge in her eyes as she sat waiting for him to complete his move. Accepting the silent dare, Clark grinned and closed the gap slowly, lightly brushing his lips against hers.

Lois matched his slow pace with one of her own, allowing only the tip of her tongue to graze his lower lip before tilting closer to deepen the kiss.

Then her cell phone rang.

Lois laughed and put a hand on Clark's shoulder. "Hold that thought. It's Chloe," she told him as she reached for her phone.

Clark growled and stood up. _I wonder if she would be upset if I flushed that thing down the toilet._

"Hello? Hey, Chloe - you there?"

Lois paused and listened for a second before responding. "Got it… Where…?"

Pulling the phone from her ear and flipping it shut, she looked at Clark with wide eyes. "I think we got cut off. She said she was sending something to her email account," she told him, spinning to face her laptop again.

"You know how to get into Chloe's email?"

Lois merely gave him a smug look in response. "It's from a Summerholt email address," she muttered, clicking to open the attachment titled 'Kevin.' "She downloaded a video… This must be Kevin."

Clark leaned so he could look over her shoulder as the video began playing. "What are they doing to him?" On the screen, a young man was pleading to be released from whatever treatment he was being subjected to.

Lois's eyes narrowed as she watched the horrifying scene. "He saw something he shouldn't have," she guessed, trying to piece together a coherent theme from the string of words coming from the terrified patient's mouth. "And it looks like they are trying to change what he remembers. Sounds like something about his brother's death."

Her face twisted in disgust as the purpose behind the mind melding became clear.

_"Dad! Dad, I know you didn't mean to do it! Please don't do this to me. You didn't mean to kill him. I know it was an accident but you can't pin this on me. Please, Dad!"_

"His father is implanting memories to make him think _he_ killed his own brother while they were hunting in Archer Park?"

Clark gritted his teeth; the action resulted in making the vein in his jaw tick. "What kind of a person could do a thing like that? How could his own father let him walk around thinking that he did that?"

She looked up at him with a dejected expression. The mental institution in question didn't have the best track record with their patients. Half of them were headliners on Chloe's Wall of Weird and the other half were tenants at Belle Reeve. "I don't think this treatment only affected his recall."

Clark nodded and sighed. "I need to find him. He needs to know the truth."

"We," she corrected.

"If he thinks he's capable of murder, he could be dangerous."

"He thinks he's capable of accidental homicide," Lois amended. "He's probably more despondent than dangerous, Clark."

"I think you should stay here."

Lois stiffened. "That's out of the question. First we need to get a hold of Chloe…" She pushed her chair back and stood while pressing the speed dial digit for her cousin's number. "Then we can see if anything at Summerholt…"

She turned around at the sudden gust of wind that blew a piece of paper off of the table. "Clark?"

Realizing that he had left her, she glared at the paper on the floor. _Sorry, but this is the only way I can be sure you're safe,_ was written in his neat penmanship. "That is _so_ unfair," she grumbled.

Taking a moment to compose herself, Lois flipped her phone shut. Chloe wasn't answering and suddenly she wasn't so sure that their earlier conversation had been cut off as she assumed. Instead, her brain began churning out more sinister scenarios. She needed to get to Metropolis.

Grabbing her bag and keys, and made sure to step on Clark's apology as she headed toward the door. If she and Clark were going to make it past Go, he was going to have to come to terms with fact that Lois Lane could take care of herself.

Stepping outside, her eyes narrowed dangerously as she noticed something important was no longer in the place she had left it. The absence of the item made Lois's inner 'girlfriend' persona stand to attention. _Oh, no he didn't!_

"Where the hell did Clark hide my car?"

* * *

Lois ran into the room just in time to see Clark catch two large metal standards with his hands right before they crushed him.

"Wow," she uttered unconsciously. It was hard to not be impressed by that.

"Good God in Heaven."

Lois mentally cursed to herself as she realized that Sheriff Adams had just witnessed the same thing she had. It had completely skipped her mind that the woman had been at her heels as she ran into the room. One day on Team 'Keep-the-Alien-Origins-Secret' and she had just allowed the _po-po_ in on the peep show.

Clark didn't help things any when he pushed the pillars off of him. She had to think fast.

"Pay no attention to the little man behind the screen!" she announced.

Clark shot her an amused smirk while Chloe struggled against the face harness to turn and give her a confused look. She returned with a shrug to both of them. "So I'm a little new at this," she offered. "It's like wine – gets better with time."

A movement caught the corner of her eye and she turned to see the guy from the video – Kevin – picking himself from the floor. He raised his hands, fingers spread, in their general direction and Lois sighed.

_This cannot be good._

Then, predictably, everything went blank.


	8. Chapter 8

"Blender, check. Coffee pot, check. Door…" Lois noted the wobbly hinge. "A little rickety."

"Hey, Lo, you mind if I check my email?" Chloe asked, brushing past her cousin and heading over to the kitchen table where Lois's laptop was still set up.

"No, go ahead," Lois replied, continuing her mental tally of possible things 'amiss'. "Ladle…majigger, check."

Chloe lowered herself into a chair and pressed the power button on the laptop.

"Has this wall always been here?"

Chloe looked up to see Lois running a hand down the far wall. "What?"

"This wall. It looks funny."

Chloe's eyes widened in amusement. "Lo, I think that wall actually holds up the roof. How long have you lived here again?"

"I'm just taking inventory. Someone has to account for what we did on those missing days, and if you kill someone, the first thing you do is erect a wall to stash the body."

"Erect a wall...?"

"Didn't you ever read _The Cask of Amontillado_?"

"Murder and mayhem. Must have been one crazy weekend if the result is none of us remembering anything," Chloe commented, waiting for the computer to power up.

"If you think that's bad, I should tell you about the first time I was introduced to Jose Cuervo."

Chloe laughed. "Actually, I have heard that story already."

"Suit yourself. I would almost rather tell the Kents _that_ story then try to explain how four hours ago we all ended up in a shrapnel filled room at Summerholt."

Clark's parents were on their way back to Smallville and they were certainly going to want to know the details behind their weekend adventure… which unfortunately were the exact things none of them could remember.

"What is Clark doing anyway?" Chloe asked.

"He's patching the hole in the wall of the barn. How it got there is beyond me." A dangerous glint sparkled in Lois's eye. "I should check on him."

Chloe peered at her warily. That glint didn't bode well for Clark. When Lois pulled a glass from the cabinet and began filling it with Lemonade from the pitcher in the refrigerator, Chloe's eyebrows rose.

_Is she taking that out to Clark?_

She knew that the animosity between her cousin and her best friend was largely an act, but Lois voluntarily doing something nice for Clark, like bringing him a cool drink while he was doing manual labor, would be out of character.

When Lois lifted the glass to her mouth and took a long draw, Chloe's heckles settled. Lois enjoying a cool drink while Clark was doing manual labor was more like it. She shook her head and chuckled softly as Lois, drink in hand, made her way to the door.

Lois paused right before she exited and rapped her knuckles against random spots on the wall. "Sounds hollow..."

Chloe shot her cousin an exasperated look. "It's load-bearing. I promise."

Lois gave one last unconvinced shrug before disappearing outside.

Chloe turned her attention back to Lois' computer and called up her gmail account. She scowled when all her efforts got her was a pesky white window. After a few attempts at her trusty keystroke magic, the result was still the same.

Sever down.

Chloe regarded the blank screen with sympathy. "I know how you feel, Amigo." She grabbed her bag off the counter and slung it over her shoulders. "Mi casa it is."

* * *

"You missed a spot."

Clark turned to see Lois making her way toward the couch. She arched an eyebrow and pointed to the opening in the wall that he was still working on filling. "Thank God for quality control," he replied sarcastically.

"How do you think that got there anyway?"

"Maybe I accidentally pushed you through the wall."

"We'll never know will we?" Lois made a mocked amused face and lowered to sit on the couch. "There should be a warning on that Smallville welcome sign out on the highway. Smallville: The home of meteor showers and memory loss."

She drained her glass and set it on the floor next to the couch. "First that whole witches brew thing at Chloe's birthday and now this. I just hope I didn't do anything embarrassing like buy hooker clothes like last time."

"I didn't think they were that bad," Clark offered.

"You wouldn't," Lois said with a smirk.

He frowned and turned back to face the wall. He tried to remember where he had put the hammer. He would need it if Lois was planning to stay around. "Did you come up here to help, or just provide a running commentary?"

"Hmmm. I'll take Running Commentary for $500, Alex." Lois made herself comfortable and reclined on the couch, crossing her arms behind head as she lay back.

"What the…?"

Clark turned around at her exclamation. "What?"

Lois sat up and squinted as she peered at the ceiling. "Is that _burned_ on?"

Clark looked up and swallowed. Branded on the ceiling was an elaborately drawn – or singed – inscription. _CK and LL forever._

For its generic meaning, the design was actually quite artistic and very… precise.

Lois burst into laughter. "Well, I guess we know what you spent the past few days thinking about. Or should I say _whom_ you spent the past few days thinking about." She patted him on the cheek as if he were the poor village idiot. "You are so predictable, Kent."

Clark released a breath and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Now it was his turn to hope he hadn't done anything embarrassing.

_I'd better call Lana._

END


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